MID: Israeli troops mobilise as Gaza assault widens
By Ibrahim Barzak and Karin Laub29 Dec 2008 12:09 PM
GAZA CITY, Dec 29 AP - Israel widened its deadliest-ever air offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers on Sunday, pounding smuggling tunnels and a central prison, sending more tanks and artillery toward the Gaza border and approving a reserves call-up for a possible ground invasion.
Israeli leaders said they would press ahead with the Gaza campaign, despite enraged protests across the Arab world and Syria's decision to break off indirect peace talks with the Jewish state. Israel's foreign minister said the goal was to halt Gaza rocket fire on Israel for good, but not to reoccupy the territory.
With the two-day death toll climbing above 290 on Sunday, crowds of Gazans breached the border wall with Egypt in an apparent attempt to escape the chaos. Egyptian forces, some firing in the air, tried to push them back into Gaza and an official said one border guard was killed.
Hamas, in turn, fired missiles deeper than ever into Israel, near the Israeli port city of Ashdod, and continues to command some 20,000 fighters.
Yet Hamas leaders were forced into hiding, most of the dead were from the Hamas security forces, and Israel's military intelligence chief said Hamas' ability to fire rockets had been reduced by 50 per cent. Indeed, Hamas rocket fire dropped off sharply, from more than 130 on Saturday to just over 20 on Sunday.
Israel's intense bombings - some 300 air strikes since midday on Saturday - wreaked unprecedented destruction in Gaza, reducing entire buildings to rubble.
Late on Sunday Israeli aircraft attacked a building in the Jebaliya refugee camp next to Gaza City, killing a 14-month-old baby, a man and two women, Gaza Health Ministry official Dr Moaiya Hassanain said.
Early on Monday, Israeli aircraft bombed the Islamic University and government compound in Gaza City, centres of Hamas power. Witnesses saw fire and smoke at the university, counting six separate airstrikes there just after midnight.
Other targets were a guest palace used by the Hamas government and the house next to Gaza Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's home in a refugee camp next to Gaza City. He was not home, as Hamas leaders have gone into hiding.
In the southern town of Rafah, Palestinians said a toddler and his two teenage brothers were killed in an airstrike aimed at a Hamas commander.
Shlomo Brom, a former senior Israeli military official, said it was the deadliest force ever used in decades of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
The UN Security Council and European leaders called on both Israel and Hamas to end the bloodshed. The White House was mum on Sunday, after speaking out expansively on Saturday and holding Hamas responsible for Israel's retaliatory strikes.
In the most dramatic attacks on Sunday, warplanes struck dozens of smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, cutting off a lifeline that had supplied Hamas with weapons and Gaza with commercial goods. The influx of goods helped Hamas defy an 18-month blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt, and was key to propping up its rule.
Sunday's blasts shook the ground several miles away and sent black smoke high into the sky.
Earlier, warplanes dropped three bombs on one of Hamas' main security compounds in Gaza City, including a prison. Moments after the blasts, frantic inmates, their faces dusty and bloodied, scrambled down the rubble. One man, still half buried, raised a hand to alert rescuers.
Gaza's nine hospitals were overwhelmed. Hassanain, who keeps a record for the Gaza Health Ministry, said more than 290 people were killed over two days and more than 800 wounded.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which keeps researchers at all hospitals, said it had counted 251 dead by midday on Sunday, and that among them were 20 children under the age of 16 and nine women.
Across Gaza, families pitched traditional mourning tents of green tarp outside homes. Yet the rows of chairs inside these tents remained largely empty, as residents cowered indoors for fear of new Israeli strikes.
Israeli leaders gave interviews to foreign television networks to try win international support.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, speaking Arabic, spoke on Arab satellite TV stations, denouncing Hamas rule in Gaza. And Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the US network NBC that the assault came because Hamas was smuggling weapons and building a "small army".
In Jerusalem, Israel's Cabinet approved a call-up of 6,500 reserve soldiers, in apparent preparation for a ground offensive. Israel has doubled the number of troops on the Gaza border since Saturday and deployed an artillery battery. It was not clear whether the deployment was meant to pressure Hamas or whether Israel is determined to send ground troops.
Since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, after 38 years of full military occupation, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the territory to hunt militants. However, Israel has shied away from retaking the entire strip, for fear of getting bogged down on urban warfare.
Military experts said Israel would need at least 10,000 soldiers for a full-scale invasion.
The diplomatic fallout, meanwhile, was swift.
Syria decided to suspend indirect peace talks with Israel, begun earlier this year. "Israel's aggression closes all the doors" to any move toward a settlement in the region, said a Syrian announcement.
The UN Security Council called on both sides to halt the fighting and asked Israel to allow humanitarian supplies into Gaza; 30 trucks were let in Sunday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to open its crossings "for the continuous provision of humanitarian supplies". In a statement, he said eight UN trainees and one staffer had been killed.
The prime minister of Turkey, one of the few Muslim countries to have relations with Israel, called the air assault a "crime against humanity".
French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke on Sunday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has set up a rival government to Hamas in the West Bank, and condemned "the provocations that led to this situation as well as the disproportionate use of force."
The carnage inflamed Arab and Muslim public opinion, setting off street protests across the West Bank, in an Arab community in Israel, in several Middle Eastern cities and in Paris.
Some of the protests turned violent. Israeli troops quelling a West Bank march killed one Palestinian and seriously wounded another. A crowd of anti-Israel protesters in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul became a target for a suicide bomber on a bicycle. In Lebanon, police fired tear gas to stop demonstrators from reaching the Egyptian Embassy.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit called on Hamas to renew its truce with Israel. The cease-fire began unravelling last month, and formally ended more than a week ago. Since then, Gaza militants have stepped up rocket fire on Israel.
A Hamas leader in exile, Osama Hamdan, said the movement would not relent. "We have one alternative, which is to be steadfast and resist, and then we will be victorious," Hamdan said in Beirut.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it was unclear when the Gaza operation would end but told his Cabinet was "liable to last longer than we are able to foresee at this time".
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in cities and towns in Gaza rocket range, and life slowed in some of the communities. Schools in communities in a 20km radius from Gaza were ordered to remain closed beyond the weeklong Jewish holiday of Hanukkah which ends Monday.
In the southern city of Ashkelon, home to some 120,000 people, streets were relatively busy, despite the military's recommendations against being out in the open.
